Tomorrow I'll Shoot Myself in the Mouth — Useless
The CDR comes in a typical Smell The Stench lo-fi black & white photo copied sleeve. The sleeve features on the front a murky picture of just a piano with a pistol set on top of it’s keys. And on the back cover is another picture of a piano with a guy curled up under it with the pistol stuck in his mouth. All very grim & very fiting for the pained & suicidal sonics with-in.
In all the release offers up five untitled tracks that last between nearing the ten and a half minute mark & just over the four minute mark a piece. The first track is one of the more melodic & less disturbing of the five tracks here- it’s built around a mixture of bleakly tuneful yet slightly discordant slow piano funeral like weaves ‘n’ plods that have distant shrieks, yells and coughs echoing around in there backgrounds… the vocals sound a little like drunk & depressed black metal grunts & bays. The piano elements seems to be made up of two possible three layers of piano texture- one layer weave out the sad repetitive & melodic plods, and the other one or two layers are taping out broken & never constant mix of discordant taps, bangs and note slips. The main melody is rather elegant & depressive, and to my mind it brings to mind ornate Victorian funeral procession.
Track two lessen the melodic elements for a quite troubling mix of discordant piano runs, doom piano pounds & bangs that turn quite noisy at times. On top of these tortured & experiential piano textures are all manner of pained crying's, slaping's, jibbrings & all kinds of disturbing/ deeply upset human sounds. Through from time to time more tuneful if still wonky piano elements appear & these are joined by semi harmonic screams & wails.
The remaining three tracks move between the more melodic & wonkily ornate piano textures, and the more noisy & doomed piano dwells, with also some external feed back been here & there in a most effective atmospheric manner. The very distinctive vocal sounds ‘n’ bays pop up through most of the other tracks lifetimes too, and once again they tread the line between pained, very distraught and oddly tuneful in a suicidal yelping way.
There’s no doubt about it “useless” is often deeply troubling, depressing, and very bleak release….yet there is a twisted & demented talent at work here, as clearly who ever behind the project certainly plays the piano with a wonky yet experience hand, and each tracks piano elements & vocal sounds are arranged for optimum atmospheric effect. Not a album you’d play a lot, but I can certainly see myself returning to this when I’m in the mood for something stark, pained & piano based. With out a doubt there’s something quite distinctive & original about this release…lets hope there’s more to come.